U.S. Personal Savings Rate Hits 5%

Caught this tidbit about the U.S. personal savings rate, which is the average American household's amount of personal savings as a percentage of its disposable personal income.

According to the article:

Savings jumped to an annual rate of $545.5 billion, the highest level since monthly records began in 1959. The saving rate surged to 5 percent in January, the biggest advance since March 1995, as households uncertain about the economy prefer to conserve their cash.

This is bad news for the short-term (since it tends to worsen the effects of the current economic downturn), but for the longer-term this is great news. It means that average Americans have more wealth (and by proxy, less overall debt).

See the full Yahoo! Finance Article here.